by AffordableFinancial Group | Dec 6, 2013 | Tax Planning
Who wins after every lotto draw? The taxman does, of course! Affordable Tax Relief wants to help you save by providing tips for lowering taxes on your lotto winnings.
How Much Are Lotto Winnings Taxed?
Not only is the lottery a tax on people who are bad at math –US lotteries generally only pay out 60% of the money players bet. The chances of winning a large lottery, such as the Powerball, is one in 175 million and the lucky winner actually has to give the IRS and state tax revenue agencies a big chunk of the prize, every time.
How big a chunk? The taxman’s share could be anything from 40% to 60%, depending on how the winner decides to cash in the prize and if they live in a state that taxes lotto winnings. The same applies even if you win a small prize, win on a game show, or participate in a community raffle.
What to do after winning the lottery
So how does paying taxes on lotto winnings work? And if you do happen to win the lottery, what is the smartest way to minimize your tax burden?
Lump Sum Vs. Annuity Payments
The first tax decision lottery winners have to make is whether to receive their prize as a lump sum or have it paid out in yearly installments, called an annuity. If you win a $10 million prize with the New York State Lottery, for instance, you get to choose between $10 million over 26 yearly payments of approximately $250,000 or a lump sum of a little less than $5 million. The full prize is only for those who choose the annual payments.
Those who choose the lump sum get the cash value in bonds that the lottery would have had to buy in order to pay $10 million over 25 years.
From a tax perspective, choosing annual payments will keep you in a much lower tax bracket, which will reduce the amount of tax you have to pay. As of 2013, taxpayers with an income between $183,251 and $398,350 pay 33 cents on the dollar to the IRS. Those with an income of more than $400,000 have to pay nearly 40 cents on the dollar, which doesn’t even include state taxes.
Similarly, business owners whose profits swing dramatically from one year to the next may benefit from spreading taxable income over multiple years.
However, there is a strong likelihood that taxes will continue to go up over time and negate the tax benefit of annuities. Also, if you choose the lump sum, you could invest the entire amount and put those lotto winnings to work, which — if your investments go well — could more than compensate for the higher initial lump sum tax rate.
“When deciding upon a lottery payment option it ultimately depends on the unique situation,” says Harry Langenberg, Managing Partner at Affordable Tax Relief, who points out winners of big jackpots will be in the highest bracket either way. “If you’re a wise investor, it makes sense to take it all at once.”
Set Up a Trust
A smart move for lottery winners is to set up a trust. In states that permit it, creating a trust allows you to collect your winnings anonymously, which can avoid a lot of unsolicited attention from scammers and opportunistic long-lost friends and relatives. A well-designed trust can also allow for tax-free growth of assets, as well as reduce estate taxes for married couples.
Trusts are not just a good idea for lottery winners and the ultra-wealthy. Even families with a moderate income can reap the benefits from setting up a trust. For instance, trusts allow you to specify how and when your children inherit your estate, which can help them use their inheritance more wisely. You can also use trusts to provide funds for particular purposes, like for education and health care, or to allocate monies for a favorite charity.
Pay Taxes Like a Millionaire
Sadly, lottery winners often end in financial ruin due to bad investment choices, greedy relatives and friends, misjudging the cost of taxes or the costs of maintaining the stuff they buy. This trap can be avoided by investing all winnings in a low-risk mutual fund and living off the interest. For example, if you invest a $250 million dollar windfall in bonds and a diversified mutual fund, you could easily generate $4 million a year after taxes.
Even investing a more modest $1 million lottery prize could earn you $50,000 a year, assuming your portfolio yields a 5% interest. Earning a living from your investments, as opposed to owning a business or working for a salary is the reason ultra-wealthy people like Mitt Romney and Warren Buffet pay a lower tax rate than their secretaries. Capital gains, or the money you generate from investing in stocks and bonds, are taxed differently than regular income. This is particularly true if you avoid the trap of trying to time the stock market and hold on to your shares and bonds for the long haul. As of 2013, the long-term capital gain tax rate is 15% for taxpayers with incomes in the 25% to 33% tax brackets.
Lottery as Voluntary Taxation
The words of John Fielding, the 18th-century English satirist, hold true today.
A Lottery is a Taxation,
Upon all the Fools in Creation;
And Heav’n be prais’d,
It is easily rais’d,
Credulity’s always in Fashion;
For, Folly’s a Fund,
Will never lose Ground;
While Fools are so rife in the Nation
The quip that lotteries are a taxation on people who are bad at math is not a joke. According to The Tax Foundation, a non-partisan tax research group based in Washington, D.C., lotteries are not just a controversial way to fill state coffers, they are an actual tax. The use of lotteries to finance the government is nothing new. In 1892, A.R. Spofford, Librarian of Congress, described lotteries as the kind of voluntary tax the most reputable citizens would engage in — as part of their civic duty — to help with the financing of schools, hospitals, and courthouses.
Today, lotteries have lost most of their patriotic component, although some lotteries are centered around charities, but they still are a significant component of state revenue. As with property taxes, lottery tax can be avoided altogether by refraining from buying a ticket.
Photo: pirateyjoe
by AffordableFinancial Group | Mar 20, 2013 | Retirement
This post originally appeared on The Fiscal Times.
When you leave the workforce and give up a paycheck, life seems grand – endless free time, no more alarm clocks, and lower tax rates – or so it seems at first. Even if you’re raking in over a million dollars in retirement savings a year, you won’t have to pay Social Security and Medicare taxes, and some states don’t tax such income either.
But those tax savings won’t get you very far. As you start drawing Social Security checks and supplement them with tax-deferred retirement plan withdrawals and investment income, your taxable income can go up sharply. What really matters is not how much you have in retirement accounts, but what you’re left with after taxes.
Planning your income in retirement – and reducing your overall tax bill – is critical to making your money last. Here are eight ways to manage your tax bite after you leave the workforce.
1. Strategically withdraw from your IRA.
Rules on tax-deferred retirement plans like IRAs, 401(k)s, and 403(b)s allow you to take distributions starting at age 59.5, and you must start withdrawing the required minimum by age 70.5 or face stiff penalty fees. It’s usually better to pull money out when your taxable income for the year will be lower, especially when the total stays under the 25-percent tax bracket (which starts at $36,250 for singles and $72,500 for married filing jointly in 2013), says William Reichenstein, investment management chair at Baylor University.
Being strategic means you’ll pay the 10- or 15-percent rate on those withdrawals. You might take out tax-deferred money, for example, in a year when you have a lot of deductions – when you’re paying high medical expenses, for example, or are making a large charitable contribution, which would significantly reduce your taxable income. For example, you might have one year when your income from a pension is $40,000, but you have medical expenses of $20,000; this would be an excellent time to withdraw from an IRA. If you know you’ll exceed $36,250 (or $72,500 for married couples), it’s best to stay under the next tax bracket. Find the 2013 tax bracket rates here.
2. Pay estimated taxes on your Social Security benefits.
Social Security income is taxable, depending on the amount of your “combined income,” which the government defines as your adjusted gross income, plus any non-taxable interest (interest earned on tax-free municipal bonds, for example), plus 50 percent of your Social Security benefits. For an individual, if your combined income is between $25,000 and $34,000, you’ll pay normal income tax rates on up to 50 percent of your benefits; if it’s more than $34,000, you’ll pay tax on up to 85 percent. Mark Steber, chief tax officer at Jackson Hewitt Tax Service, says you can request that the Social Security Administration withhold those taxes from your checks, but it’s better to make estimated payments yourself because it’s common for combined income to fluctuate a lot, and the amount withheld would likely be too high or low.
3. Consider delaying your Social Security checks.
One benefit of waiting to collect Social Security until you’re older is that your checks will be larger. Though you can start collecting any time between the ages of 62 and 70, for every year you wait, your check will grow by roughly 6.25 percent, says Philadelphia-area financial planner Daniel White of Daniel White & Associates. But taxes also play into it.
In a paper last April for the Journal of Financial Planning, Baylor’s Reichenstein and a coauthor tested the effects of starting Social Security at different ages. They found that someone who retired in 2011 at age 62 with $700,000 in savings and started taking monthly Social Security checks of $1,125 that year would exhaust their portfolio in 30 years at a given spending level. But if they used their own assets to fund their early retirement and started taking their now-much-larger checks of $1,980 at age 70, their portfolio would last at least 40 years at that same spending level. This is in part because only 50 percent of your Social Security benefits count toward the combined-income threshold. Of course, all decisions like this are a gamble — if you die young, it would have been better to start taking Social Security earlier. However, if you have a surviving spouse, he or she would receive all or part of your benefit, depending on their age.
4. Give your children appreciated assets instead of cash.
If you’re planning to give money to the children or grandchildren, one way to do so while getting a tax benefit is instead of cash, give them a stock that’s grown since you bought it, says White. Of course, your family member will pay the capital gains tax when they sell the asset, so for both of you to benefit, the recipient should be in a lower tax bracket than you are – which is likely if you’re helping them out.
5. Convert your IRA to a Roth IRA.
If you can afford to pay the taxes, start converting your IRA to a Roth IRA, says Matthew Curfman, certified financial planner at Richmond Brothers in Jackson, Michigan. Growing your money in a Roth and then being able to withdraw it tax free will protect you against future tax increases. Also, since there’s no mandatory withdrawal on a Roth, it makes an excellent long-term contingency fund – and any withdrawals don’t count in the combined-income formula used to tax Social Security benefits, notes David Littell, co-director of the American College of Financial Services’ Center for Retirement Income.
6. Make charitable contributions from your IRA.
The New Year’s Day fiscal cliff deal resuscitated an expired provision for 2013 that allows people age 70.5 or older to donate up to $100,000 from their IRA to a qualified charity, without having to pay taxes on the transfer. That donation can help satisfy your required minimal distribution. You can’t beat that provision, Curfman says. If you donate $20,000 from your IRA to the charity, the nonprofit gets all of it. But if you withdraw $20,000 out of your IRA and then donate the cash, the IRS taxes it before you make the donation – so if the tax was $3,000, the charity gets only $17,000.
7. Raise the cost basis of your investments when your income is lower.
Low-income years in retirement are a great time to sell a stock that has appreciated and reinvest the gain in stock of a similar class, says Reichenstein. That’s because, under the fiscal cliff deal, the long-term capital gains rate is zero (yes, zero) on people whose income puts them in the 15-percent bracket or lower (up to $36,250 for a single filer and $72,500 for married filing jointly).
In years when you’re in one of those brackets, you can sell a stock you bought originally at $40,000 that’s now worth $50,000 and buy another stock worth $50,000. You’ve raised the cost basis of the stock by $10,000, reducing the taxes you’ll pay if you have to sell it in a year when you’re in the 25-percent or higher bracket. Use caution though, says Reichenstein: Make sure that $10,000 in gain doesn’t push your income for the year high enough that it would cause your combined income to rise to the point that your Social Security benefits are taxed at a higher rate.
8. Move to a tax-friendly state.
If you’re moving for retirement, consider taxes as part of your decision, says Diana Webb, assistant professor of finance at Northwood University. A report last September from Kiplinger identified Alaska, Nevada, and Wyoming as the three states with the most retirement-friendly tax laws. The worst include Ohio, California and New York.
by AffordableFinancial Group | Dec 11, 2012 | Tax Planning
How do you know if you need a tax attorney?
Tax attorneys are lawyers who specialize in the complex and technical field of tax law. According to this article from about.com, you definitely need a tax attorney if:
- You have a taxable estate, need to make complex estate planning strategies, or need to file an estate tax return.
- You are starting a business and need legal counsel about the structure and tax treatment of your company.
- You are engaging in international business and need help with contracts, tax treatment, and other legal matters.
- You plan to bring a suit against the IRS.
- You plan to seek independent review of your case before the US Tax Court.
- You are under criminal investigation by the IRS.
- You have committed tax fraud (such as claiming false deductions and credits) and need the protection of privilege.
But what if you’re already mired in tax debt and can’t afford to hire an attorney? Low Income Taxpayer Clinics (LITCs) represent low income taxpayers before the IRS and assist taxpayers in audits, appeals and collection disputes. These clinics, which are operated by nonprofit organizations or academic institutions, can also help taxpayers respond to IRS notices and correct account problems.
Another option is to seek assistance from a referral system operated by a state bar association, a state or local society of accountants or enrolled agents, or another nonprofit tax professional organization.
Debt settlement companies are not law firms and cannot provide legal advice. However, debt settlement can be a part of your solution to tax debt. Debt settlement means that your debt is negotiated down to a reduced amount and paid off in a lump sum. Settlement is a good choice if you have more debt than you can pay off within two to three years or are experiencing a financial hardship that has you falling behind on your monthly payments.
by AffordableFinancial Group | Dec 11, 2012 | Tax Relief Solutions
Annually, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) reaches out to taxpayers across America who earned $49,078 or less to offer a little tax relief by way of the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC).
The EITC varies according to your income, family size and filing status. Basically, it is a federal refund for taxpayers with low to moderate incomes. And eligible taxpayers may still get a refund even if they don’t owe taxes.
Eligible workers often miss out on it because they either don’t claim it or don’t file a tax return. This is especially true if their financial situation has changed; something that has happened to a lot of Americans over the last few years.
You can easily find out if you qualify just by visiting IRS.gov and answering a few questions using the EITC Assistant.
To get your EITC refund, you have to:
- Have had earned income through employment, self-employment or farming
- Have a valid social security number
- Be a U.S. citizen or resident alien, or a non-resident alien married to a citizen or resident alien
- Be 25 years or older
- Have investment income of less than $3,150
- Not be claimed on someone else’s tax return
- File a tax return
There are additional stipulations with regard to how you file (single or married) and whether you have filed Form 2555 (foreign income). However, in this climate of continuing financial struggle, taking the time to determine if you are eligible for some tax relief from the IRS is well worth the time investment.
And if taxes aren’t the only financial obligation that has you struggling right now; if other unsecured debt like credit cards, student loans or a car note have you wondering how you will make ends meet, take the time to ask us about debt settlement. It’s our specialty.
by AffordableFinancial Group | Jan 15, 2012 | Tax Planning
Don’t fall victim to tax relief scams. Learn how to spot a scam and what to do. Thousands of people fall victim to tax relief scams every year – make sure it’s not you.
Unfortunately, the Tax Relief Industry attracts circling vultures waiting to prey on those who are weakened by the threat of IRS action. You’ve probably seen the ads. You’ve heard the commercials. “Settle your tax debt for pennies on the dollar,” they claim. “We are the country’s largest tax resolution firm,” they explain. “We are a publicly traded corporation,” they proclaim. Well Enron was a very large publicly traded company as well, and they weren’t exactly trustworthy, were they? Some of these same firms have been sued by Attorney Generals for consumer fraud and theft. Others have over 1,000 complaints with the Better Business Bureau (BBB) for their tax resolution scams.
Arm yourself with the tools necessary to defend against fraudulent companies and their self-serving actions. Start by informing yourself about some of the most common tax relief scams below and learn how to protect yourself.
Top Tax Relief Scams
Tax Relief Scam #1 – Non-Refundable Upfront Payments Without Any Guarantees
The most common tax relief scam performed by these companies is to charge money upfront while promising to get results that they know are unpredictable, if not impossible, to achieve. The company may ask you to commit a very large sum of money upfront before an investigation is conducted or before the IRS side of the story is pulled (through the Master Transcript). These are the companies that are the sour apples in the industry because they are focused more on driving upfront revenue than actually helping their clients.
Tax Relief Scam #2 – Misrepresenting Potential Outcomes
Another common scam comes from aggressive salespeople who try to reel in clients by dangling anecdotal stories of ‘pennies on the dollar’ Offer in Compromise tax settlements. The reality is that very few taxpayers qualify for an Offer in Compromise (about 25% to 33% of applicants).
But the scam companies out there won’t tell you that. They may string you along and make you think you are being taken care of only to discover that, when all is said and done, you did not qualify for the Offer in Compromise. At which point the tax settlement scam company will conveniently assert that it was because the IRS did not approve it, and it was not their (the company’s) fault.
There are multiple factors the IRS considers in an Offer in Compromise application such as the taxpayer’s ability to pay, income, expenses, and asset equity. The truth is that most taxpayers don’t qualify.
When you are dealing with a new tax resolution company, ask yourself, does the company make a thorough assessment of the factors above? Do they emphasize the importance of these qualifications? Do they make it clear that an Offer in Compromise is difficult to obtain? If the answer to any of these questions is no, you may be dealing with a company who does not have your best interests in mind.
Tax Relief Scam #3 – Marketing Companies Posing as Service Providers
There are a lot of companies that advertise tax relief services but do nothing more than sell the customer’s information to other service providers.
A consumer is led to believe they are working directly with the company that’s doing the marketing, but in actuality their information will be sold to other service providers or outsourced independent contractors. The companies doing the marketing have no control over the quality of the product or the service levels given. In the worst cases, they sign up a consumer, with no intention of servicing the client whatsoever.
Information to protect against data brokers are:
- Social Security number
- First & Last Name
- Date of Birth
- Prior Year Annual Gross Income (AGI)
- Driver’s License Number
- Current City, Address, Territory, and Zip code
- Electronic Filing PIN
Tax Relief Scam #4 – The Outright Fraudsters
Unfortunately, there are some firms who have outright cheated and stolen from their clients. These are the firms that are being targeted and shut down by the Attorney Generals and who have tarnished the industry. In these cases, the unscrupulous companies will enroll many clients into a program and collect their money without providing adequate services. Some don’t even send the necessary paperwork to the IRS.
As soon as there are too many complaints or upset consumers, the company will simply change their name and start preying on consumers all over again. Adding insult to injury, many of these companies don’t provide refunds and leave people even further in debt.
Tax Relief Scam Companies Charged for Fraud in Recent Years
Tax Master’s
On March 30, 2012, Tax Master’s was ordered along with its founder, Patrick Cox, to pay $195 million on charges that it defrauded customers nationwide. A few weeks prior, the tax relief firm filed for bankruptcy “in an apparent effort to avoid the state’s enforcement action,” explained the Texas Attorney general.
Tax Master’s unlawfully misled customers about their service contract terms, failed to disclose its no-refunds policy, and falsely claimed that the firm’s employees would immediately begin work on a case – despite the fact that Tax Master’s did not actually start to work on a case until its customers paid in full for services, even if that delayed response meant taxpayers missed significant IRS deadlines.
Roni “Tax Lady” Deutch
In August 2010, former tax attorney Roni Deutch was hit with a $34 million lawsuit for allegedly defrauding thousands of customers seeking tax advice. Then California Attorney General Jerry Brown (now Governor of California) accused her of airing misleading advertisements about her services and engaging in heavy-handed sales techniques to pressure clients. Included in the allegations were charges that Deutch’s firm not only did not provide the services promised to clients but that she refused to refund fees.
An order was issued in August of 2011 prohibiting Deutch from destroying any evidence related to the case. According to the current attorney general of California, Kamala D. Harris, however, Deutch began shredding documents immediately. The attorney general’s office alleges in its complaint that Deutch shredded nearly 2,000 pounds of the firm’s documents, or about 200,000 pages the day after the order was issued.
J.K. Harris
The company has been sued by a number of U.S. Attorneys General after receiving numerous consumer complaints settlement of a class-action lawsuit that had been brought against JK Harris by the Attorneys General of 18 states, including the AG of South Carolina, home to JK Harris’ headquarters.about misleading business and advertising practices. In July 2007 a South Carolina judge approved a $6 million settlement of a class-action lawsuit that had been brought against JK Harris by the Attorneys General of 18 states, including the AG of South Carolina, home to JK Harris’ headquarters.
The suit claimed that JK Harris & Company was charging customers fees for resolving back tax debts, but then failed to deliver on their promises, and engaged in deceptive marketing and advertising practices, such as promoting that their regional offices were staffed by tax experts when they were often only sales representatives.
American Tax Relief
The FTC filed charges against American Tax Relief in September 2010. The defendants allegedly defrauded consumers out of a whopping $100 million during a short period of time in business! A summary judgement in favor of the FTC found that American Tax Relief falsely claimed they already had significantly reduced the tax debts of thousands of people and falsely told individual consumers they qualified for tax resolution programs that would significantly reduce their tax debts.
In February 2013, the defendants were found personally liable and settled the matter under an agreement with the Federal Trade Commission. The settlement order imposes a $103.3 million judgment against ATR, Hahn, and Joo HyunPark. It also imposes judgments of $18 million and $595,000, respectively, against Young Soon Park and Il Kon Park, Joo Park’s parents, who were found by the court to have received significant sums from the scheme’s earnings. The judgments will be suspended once the defendants and relief defendants have surrendered assets that total more than $15 million, including cash, a home in Beverly Hills and a condo in Los Angeles, jewelry and gold items and a 2005 Ferrari.
How to Protect Yourself
Do Your Research
Thankfully we now live in a world with Google and it’s very easy to find out if a firm is one of the good guys or bad guys. To find out if the firm you are dealing with is trustworthy just look them up through the Better Business Bureau (BBB) or other similar sites. Below are some of the best places to do your research.
1) Better Business Bureau (BBB) – www.bbb.org/us/Find-Business-Reviews
2) Rip Off Report – www.ripoffreport.com
3) Complaints.com – www.complaintsboard.com
Ask The Right Questions
Do you require upfront payments for services?
Firms that make you pay for their services upfront should be avoided. These are the most common tax relief scams. The reputable firms in this industry will be paid their fees after they have rendered their services. Some firms will include a nominal “discovery fee” for them to assign a tax professional to your case and do the research necessary to provide their recommended course of action. This is preferable to working with a firm that assesses all payments due upfront without knowing the specifics of your case.
What is your refund policy?
If you’re still considering working with a firm that is charging for their services upfront, you’ll want to at least work with a firm that has a formal refund policy. If they are not able to deliver what they claim, you’ll be able to get some or all of your money back.
Do you have any guarantees?
Ask them to put their money where their mouth is. A reputable firm will be willing to guarantee their performance.
Do you service your own clients?
Many firms are just marketing affiliates taking a cut for referring clients to larger backend companies. Ideally, you’ll want to work with a company that services their own clients with an in-house team of CPA’s and tax negotiators.
Please don’t fall for any tax relief scams. If you have an issue with the IRS, contact us today to talk to a professional tax relief advisor you can trust.
